


The odd one out

by orphan_account



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-08-27 14:24:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8404987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Please note that my first language isn't English: If you see something that needs correcting please send me a message.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s cold when they arrive in Gothenburg; late autumn making way for frost that lasts most of the day, the chill of winter clinging to the sensors on his cybernetic feet and hands, never really leaving them. Zenyatta (for once bundled up in a scarf and jacket, after the omnic mentioned in passing that he can't regulate the temperature of his systems well in the cold. Not without spending most of his energy on warming up his hardware,) didn’t appear to be much better off, but would still laugh and talk though his hands were slow and grip weak. Add to that, the cold made his joints squeak.

”We could get a wheelchair, Master.” Genji said when another unhealthy metal squik made a another woman turn her head, ”it would let you warm your system, right? You sound like an old chew toy.”  
”I would be shutting down systems to focus energy on that one task. I’d be dead to the world,” the omnic hummed and pulled the jacket hood tighter around his cranium, before sticking his hands back in his pockets, ”and I’d really like to see the city, now that we are finally here.”

The city turned out to host nothing but hissed threats, messages on walls telling them they were not welcome. The hostels they visited wouldn’t let them stay. Water was dumped over them when they passed under the windows of an apartment complex, and by the end of the day Zenyatta's enthusiasm had mostly evaporated: it was visible in the crooked way he held himself, dimmed the lights on his forehead, tilted his head just so as to hide his face. And Genji watched with a hurting heart as his master folded his arms about his knees, curled up on a cheap sofa at McDonalds. A tray with two small paper cups stood between them, on the table. They wouldn’t be disturbed for a while.

”I thought,” Zenyatta mumbled into his knees, ”I thought people would be nicer here. They always said Sweden enjoyed advanced technology, before the crisis.”  
Genji snorted into his drink, ”I thought it was the country of cheap shitty build-at-home furniture.”  
The way the omnic's hands squeezed the material of his jeans made the student quiet down.

At midnight they were kicked out, and drifted for a while before sneaking into the central train station and locking themselves in a bathroom stall. Once they were huddled close together, Genji turned off the lights and settled in for the night.  
”I ordered tickets to Germany.” He cracked an eye open at Zenyattas mumbled words. ”We are departing by bus, tomorrow.”  
He might have pulled his master a little closer, enveloped him with warm arms after urging him into his lap, but neither of them said anything about it: He didn’t like the forced neutrality to the omnic's words.

”Good,” Genji muttered into the crown of Zenyattas head. ”I didn’t like Sweden anyway.”


	2. Chapter 2

Whereas Sweden had been pretty much the shittiest stop so far on their journey, what with six hours sleeping on the wet floor of a bathroom stall and then another fourteen dozing, curled together in a bus seat, Germany turned out to be one of the better ones. There were some wary glances, a few anti-omnic posters, but people stopped and listened to the robot in tattered pants and worn military green jacket. Genji could leave his master to the people for ten minutes without actually having to worry a terrible lot, and he spent those few minutes standing in line to get a single cup of coffee and one colorful cookie.

He was watching his beverage being poured when he heard the commotion outside, and he turned around in time to watch an automobile get flipped into the air, revealing Zenyatta coming for the shop, full tilt, hood flapping in the wind behind him, his mala coiled tight around his throat. The cyborg caught a glimpse of an old man with a shotgun following him before the car hit the asphalt behind his omnic friend, the hover function not kicking in fast enough to prevent it from making contact with the ground and denting the plating.

Genji quietly watched as Zenyatta actually turned and looked at it, slowing down enough to see the old man vault over it. The shotgun was waving in the air, from where he stood, Genji saw the spittle flying from his mouth. The monk only threw himself at the window, must've grabbed hold of a windowsill above it because his legs and feet disappeared shortly afterward.

The entire cafe was quiet, watching the man who kept waving his shotgun and screaming at, what Genji assumed, would be a saffron-yellow omnic butt disappearing over the edge of the roof.

*** *** ***

Getting up on the roof proved easy enough, even one-handed. Finding Zenyatta was just as easy, as he was standing close to the edge he'd climbed over and fidgeting a little. Getting him to talk was an entirely other matter. It took unpacking that one cookie and sitting them both down across eachother with Genji's visor between them for the omnic to finally relax.

“I talked to a woman outside his store.”

Who "he" was didn't need clarification. “Uh-huh?”

Zen turned the cookie around to examine its backside, didn't meet his eyes over the cup.

“It was his daughter.” one staticy sigh, the cookie was cracked in two. “I flipped a car and climbed a house to get away from a man who thought I was flirting with his daughter.”

The cyborg was quietly glad that the paper cup hid his mouth. “Cute.”

The only response he got was a drawn-out groan from his omnic friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that my first language isn't English: If you see something that needs correcting please send me a message.


	3. Chapter 3

Greece, in winter, was still pretty warm.  
Or so Genji figured, as the temperature was a number on a screen for him. Angela hadn't looked him in the eyes when she told him his nerves had been severely damaged; that pressure or heat or the chill of winter would only be sensed dully, as if through thick fabric, where his skin remained. The rubbery material that replaced the organic tissue was embedded with sensors, she had told him, but they hadn't yet managed to create something that could replicate the signals needed to let him feel.

And since his legs weren't exactly organic, he was happy that the streets weren't covered in ice. Especially since the nodes on his feet that were supposed to balance him were currently inside a very thick pair of boots.  
Add to it, Zenyatta was currently laughing uncontrollably, unlike his usual collection of replicated human sounds. The static noises that escaped his voicebox as the neighborhood children chased him down and got at the sensors along his middle were distinctly non-human, and laced his words as he pleaded for their mercy. The jacket he usually wore had been discarded and now lay neatly folded across the cyborgs legs.

Genji was admittedly a little jealous of his omnic companions ability to feel, but in the end it didn't matter much: It was really just kind of funny to see the monk collapse under a pile of children, gone in all sense of the word, while the squealing kids clung to his clunky frame.

 

By the end of the day, when they'd both followed each child home (Zenyatta lead by the hand, Genji trailing a few steps after), the two made their way back to their rented room.

“I've been wondering...” It's sudden, with a contemplative undertone. Zenyattas optics are dimmed, meaning he's not all on the surface: Too many processes going on, legs working automatically. Genji grabs his hand to steer him along the right path, sensors on his own palm registering the warmth radiating from his masters. “I was told humans enjoy playing with the young; I enjoy it, as well. Why is it-”

“It's different between different people, I guess I'm not much for kids.” the Cyborg shrugged. “Or maybe having you around is enough to make me tired of them.”

“I'm not a child.”

“You're nineteen.”

“I am not a child, Genji.”

The cyborg pinged the monk with a video of him being excited over the small candle-covered cake they'd had a few months earlier, and the hand that had previously been in his grasp pulled free to smack his arm. “I can't believe you recorded that.”

“It was cute!”

“Once again: I'm nineteen!”

Metal fingers slipped back into his hold, a mechanical snort accompanying them, and all Genji could do was laugh.

Not a kid.  
Right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There won't be quality drabbles here as I'm writing them in my free time when I'm tired as hell and apparently can't connect events.  
> English isn't my original language

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that my first language isn't English: If you see something that needs correction please send me a message.


End file.
